Selling Blue Elephants: How to Make Great Products That People Want Before They Even Know They Want Them is a book written by Howard Moskowitz and Alex Gofman (Publisher: Wharton School Publishing 2007).
The book outlines a new solution-oriented learning experience co-developed with Prof. Jerry (Yoram) Wind of Wharton School of Business - Rule Developing Experimentation (RDE).
RDE is the systematized process of designing, testing and modifying alternative ideas, packages, products, or services in a disciplined way so that the developer and marketer discover what appeals to the customer, even if the customer can't articulate the need, much less the solution. The book describes best practices in the RDE from some of today's top companies: HP, Prego, Vlasic, MasterCard and others. Filled with real-life stories, this book changes the way people think about selling to their present and future customers.
The book was positively reviewed by Kirkus Reviews, Wharton Connect along with many others. Among distinguished people that endorsed the book are Prof. Stephen Kosslyn (Chair, Department of Psychology, Harvard University), Prof. Lawrence E. Marks (Professor of Epidemiology and Psychology, Director, John B. Pierce Laboratory, Yale University), Prof. Eugene Galanter (Director, Psychophysics Laboratory, Columbia University), Prof. Subrata Sen (Yale University), Prof. Vijay Mahajan (John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business, Marketing Department, The University of Texas at Austin), Iain Bitran (President, The International Society for Professional Innovation Management - ISPIM) and others.
The book is currently under contracts to be translated and published in Germany, Italy, Spain (both full and digest), Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan (Chinese Traditional), China (Chinese Simplified), South Korea, Russia, Netherlands, Lebanon, Romania (both full and digest), Thailand, India, Lithuania and Vietnam.
Famous quotes containing the words selling, blue and/or elephants:
“Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it.... Advanced art today is no longer a cause—it contains no moral imperative. There is no virtue in clinging to principles and standards, no vice in selling or in selling out.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)
“The traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing but the blue sky and the men and women who live under it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Amid attempts to protect elephants from ivory poachers and dolphins from tuna nets, the rights of children go remarkably unremarked.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)